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WORLD WAR II
1939-1945
ORIGINS OF THE WAR
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Adolf Hitler (Chancellor of Germany and leader of Nazi Party) defies Treaty of
Versailles
Hitler rebuilds the German armed forces and becomes leader of the Third
Reich
The outbreak of WWII proved the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations
Munich Conference (September 1938) – British Prime Minister, Neville
Chamberlain, appeased Hitler’s demand and allowed him to annex the
Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia
Appeasement – granting concessions to an aggressor; allowed Nazi
aggression to go unchecked and make more demands
HITLER RISES TO POWER
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Nazism—German brand of fascism
Anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) was a key part of Nazi ideology; they were
scapegoats for Germany’s problems
Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and Nazi leader in 1933
Mein Kampf—Hitler‘s book detailing beliefs, goals
Hitler believed that Germany needs lebensraum, or living space
Germans turned to him when economy collapsed during the Great Depression
March 1938 - Hitler annexed territories that he felt belonged to Germany
Hitler wanted to achieve lebensraum (living space) by conquering other
countries
NAZI-SOVIET NON-AGGRESSION PACT
 Non-aggression pact—Germans and Soviets
agreed not to fight each other
 Agreement included a secret deal to split Poland
MUSSOLINI TAKES CONTROL OF ITALY
 Fascism was a new, militant political movement
 Emphasized nationalism and loyalty to authoritarian leader
 Italians wanted a leader who would take action
 Fascist Party leader, Benito Mussolini, promised to rescue
Italy
 Italian king put Mussolini in charge of government
TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS
 Similarity between Fascism and Communism =
both suppressed the views of the opposition
 Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union used
censorship, secret police, and repression to control
their populations
JAPAN SEEKS AN EMPIRE
 Military leaders took control of country
 Japan wanted the iron ore and coal deposits in Manchuria, Chinese
province
 In 1931, Japanese army invaded and seized Manchuria
 League of Nations protested this action; Japan withdrew from League
 In 1937, Japan launched war on China
JAPAN SEEKS AN EMPIRE (MAP)
CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN
 In 1931, a republic is declared in Spain
 In 1936, General Francisco Franco leads Spanish rebel troops
 Hitler and Mussolini help Franco and his Fascists
 In 1939, Franco wins Spanish Civil War
 Franco becomes Spain’s Fascist dictator
FRANCO AND HITLER
ALLIANCES
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ALLIES: United States, Great Britain, France, Soviet
Union, Australia, Canada, China
AXIS POWERS: Germany, Japan, Italy, Austria, Hungary,
Romania, Bulgaria
BIG THREE: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (US), Winston
Churchill (UK), Joseph Stalin (USSR)
BIG THREE
WORLD WAR II FLAGS
ALLIES
AXIS
WORLD WAR II BEGINS
Invasion of Poland - Germany invaded Poland on September 1st,
1939 to take Danzig and the Polish Corridor
 Blitzkrieg – use of aerial fighters, bombers, artillery, tanks, troop
divisions and carriers in order to advance into a territory and overrun it
quickly; tactic used surprise and overwhelming force
 Two days later, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany
 World War II begins in the European Theater
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THE FALL OF FRANCE
 May 1940—Germany conquers Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg
 Soon after, German army reached French coast
 German forces trapped British and French troops on coast at Dunkirk, France
 British Navy and civilians took ships across the English Channel to rescue
soldiers
 Total of 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of
850 boats ; “miracle at Dunkirk”
 June 1940—France surrenders to Germany
 Charles de Gaulle, French general, organized the Free French resistance
movement to oppose Germany
EVACUATION AT DUNKIRK
NAZIS CONQUER FRANCE
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
August 1940 – The Battle of Britain
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Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, rallied the British
people
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He said the Germans would not take Britain regardless of the
Luftwaffe’s constant bombing campaign and superior numbers of
aircraft
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The bravery and skill of the RAF (Royal Air Force) and radar pushed
back the Nazi invasion (Operation Sea Lion); Hitler’s forces could be
blocked
WINSTON CHURCHILL
BATTLE OF BRITAIN
LEND-LEASE ACT AND ATLANTIC
CHARTER
Lend-Lease Act (March 1941)
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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and Congress gave billions of
dollars worth of aid in the form of weapons, tanks, airplanes, and food to the
Allies
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Justified because U.S. believed Allies were vital to our defense; we did not
send troops
Atlantic Charter (August 1941)
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Roosevelt and Churchill secretly met on a warship in the Atlantic Ocean to
discuss wartime goals
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Supported free trade and right to self-determination
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First discussion of setting up a system of general security (United Nations)
INVASION OF PEARL HARBOR
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U.S. responded to Japanese aggression in Southeast Asia by cutting off oil
supplies to Japan and freezing their assets; angers Japan
December 7, 1941 - The Japanese Empire attacked the U.S. naval base in
Hawaii so they could secure control of East Asia
Our Pacific fleet was the largest threat to Japan’s empire-building (they tried
to take over U.S., British, and French territories)
“A day that will live in infamy”, as proclaimed by FDR
U.S. declares war on Japan and Germany declared war on us
2,400 Americans were killed
INVASION OF PEARL HARBOR
FDR
CAPTAIN AMERICA ISSUE 1
(MARCH 1941)
THE HOME FRONT
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War Production Board (WPB) – set up to convert factories for war
production
Businesses, citizens, and soldiers prepared for war
WWII brought new job opportunities for women and other minorities, such as
African and Hispanic Americans
Many women fill factory positions and built war materials
People bought war bonds and rationed gasoline, rubber, shoes, food
Tuskegee Airmen – black pilots who trained in Alabama and flew thousands
of successful combat missions in North Africa and Italy
“WE CAN DO IT!”
BUY WAR BONDS, CAPTAIN
AMERICA STYLE
JAPANESE INTERNMENT
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After Pearl Harbor, Americans distrusted Japanese Americans
FDR issues Executive Order 9066
Government placed 115,000 Japanese Americans in internment
camps
They were evacuated from their jobs and homes
33,000 Nisei (Americans born to Japanese immigrants) fought
bravely in combat
Korematsu vs. U.S. (1944) – Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of the internment camps for reasons of national
security
RACISM AGAINST THE
JAPANESE
BATAAN DEATH MARCH
 Japanese army forced 76,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war
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(POWs) after the three month Battle of Baatan in the Philippines
Resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners
The 80 mile march was characterized by physical abuse and murder
Resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilian
Judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime
THE HOLOCAUST
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Final Solution = the codename for the Nazi plan to exterminate the entire
Jewish population of Europe in the name of Aryan supremacy
When Hitler and the Nazis conquered huge sections of Europe and the
Soviet Union, captured Jews were sent to ghettos, concentration camps to be
used as slave labor, and eventually to death camps
Genocide = the extermination of an entire group of people
Largest death camps were Auschwitz and Treblinka
Over 6 million Jews (2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population) had been killed
during the Holocaust
Allied forces liberated death camps after we gained victories after D-Day
THE HOLOCAUST
WAR IN NORTH AFRICA AND
ITALY (EUROPEAN THEATER)
The Battle of El Alamein (1942 and 1943)
 In Egypt, British forces under General Bernard Montgomery, defeated
General Irwin Rommel (The Desert Fox) and his Afrika Korps
The Italian Campaign (July 1943) – U.S. and British forces invade Sicily and take
it within a month
 U.S. forces led by General George S. Patton
 Italians overthrew and executed Mussolini – armistice signed
 Germans eventually lost control over the Italian peninsula
BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN
INVASION OF THE SOVIET
UNION
Operation Barbarossa (June 1941)
 Germans invaded the Soviet Union to get more “living space”, or Lebensraum
for the German people
 Germans took vast amounts of resources throughout the region like wheat in
the Ukraine
Battle of Stalingrad (1941 to 1943)
 German forces could not advance
 Red Army successfully pushed Germans back due to lack of reinforcements,
provisions and rations
 Germans were also defeated by the harsh Russian winter
 Soviet Union lost the largest amount of lives during the war
JOSEPH STALIN
BATTLE OF STALINGRAD
BATTLE OF STALINGRAD
WAR IN ASIA (PACIFIC THEATER)
Japanese Victories
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Europeans and Americans present in the Pacific (Hong Kong, Malaya, the Philippines, and Burma)
were quickly overrun by the Japanese in 1941
American Victories
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Battle of Coral Sea (May 1942) - Americans crippled a huge portion of the Japanese fleet
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Battle of Midway (June 1942) - the excellent communications intelligence and skill of American
sailors and pilots destroyed four Japanese carriers; Midway was the turning point; the U.S. was now
on the offensive in the Pacific
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Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 1944) – largest naval battle in history; Allies crushed the Japanese
Island hopping = Allies took only the most strategically important islands and used each one as a base;
these islands were the least heavily defended by Japan
Kamikaze = Japanese pilots who purposely crashed planes into our ships during the Battle of Okinawa
BATTLES OF IWO JIMA AND
OKINAWA
Iwo Jima (February 1945)
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U.S. Marines invaded this island and after a month of fighting, we
lost 6,800 men and the Japanese lost almost 20,000
Okinawa (April 1945)
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After 3 months of fighting, the Allies lost 12,000 men with 36,000
wounded and the Japanese lost 110,000 troops and 80,000 civilians
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2,500 kamikaze missions killed over 4,000 Allied sailors
These were 2 of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific
IWO JIMA
IWO JIMA
OKINAWA
BATTLE OF MIDWAY
THE INVASION OF FRANCE
(D-DAY)
D-Day Invasion (June 6th, 1944)
 Operation: Overlord = largest amphibious invasion in history
 176, 000 Allied troops as well as thousands of destroyers, naval vessels and
aircraft invaded France
 Supreme Allied Commander – General Dwight D. Eisenhower
 U.S., British, and Canadian (Allied forces) troops landed on the beaches of
northern France (Normandy) in order to push back the German forces and end
their occupation
 Bombers and fighters helped to soften up German defensive fortifications
 D-Day invasion forced Germans to fight a two-front war
 August 1944 – the Allies free Paris
D-DAY
D-DAY
GENERALS EISENHOWER AND
MONTGOMERY
CAPTAIN AMERICA AT D-DAY
ALLIED VICTORY IN EUROPE
 Battle of the Bulge – final German counter-offensive against Allies in
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Belgium (Ardennes Forest)
Created a “bulge” through Allied lines and stopped our advance
Allies eventually crushed German forces in January 1945; Allies
suffered almost 80,000 casualties
Allied forces continued to advance and the Soviet Union attacked the
Germans from the east
Germans surrendered and Berlin was taken on May 7th, 1945 (V-E Day)
Allies were victorious in Europe
BATTLE OF THE BULGE
BATTLE OF THE BULGE
FUTURE OF THE POSTWAR WORLD
YALTA CONFERENCE
POTSDAM
CONFERENCE
 February 1945; Ukraine
 July 1945; Germany
 FDR, Churchill, Stalin
 Truman (U.S.), Attlee (U.K.), Stalin
 Goal = free elections for countries
 Goal = Germany would be divided
liberated from Germany
 Goal = support for creating an
international peacekeeping
organization (United Nations)
into four occupation zones (U.S.,
Britain, France, and the Soviet
Union)
DEFEAT OF JAPAN
The Atomic Bomb
 Manhattan Project = Allied scientists worked on a secret program to develop an atomic bomb
 Atomic bomb = weapon that produces tremendous power by splitting atoms
 It was estimated that over a million American soldiers would be killed or wounded invading the
Japanese mainland
 President Harry Truman gave the order to use the atomic bomb
 August 6, 1945 – the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima – 80, 000 Japanese civilians were
killed instantly
 August 9, 1945 – the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki – 40, 000 people were killed
instantly
 August 15, 1945 – Japan surrenders and World War II ends
 September 2nd, 1945 – Japan surrenders to the U.S. aboard the USS Missouri – peace treaty signed
ATOMIC BOMB EXPLODES
NUREMBERG TRIALS
 Trials of 22 Nazi leaders for war crimes
 Some Nazi leaders were executed for their actions
 Took place in Nuremberg, Germany